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Hartley Peavey receives Lifetime Achievement Award in London, England

October 16, 2015

Music and audio innovator Hartley Peavey, founder and CEO of Peavey® Electronics, was recently honored as the recipient of the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual AV Awards ceremony in London, England.

Recognized for his pioneering efforts and 50 years of successful innovation and manufacturing, Peavey appeared in person to accept the award before a crowd of 950 cheering AV industry professionals in the Great Hall of the Grosvenor House Hotel.

"I was pleasantly surprised to learn that AV Magazine would be giving me the honor of a 'Lifetime Achievement Award,'" said Peavey. "It's hard to realize that I have been in this industry for over 50 years now. We have always tried to bring new and fresh approaches to the areas of technology in which we operate. Back in the mid 1970's we revolutionized the manufacture of guitars with our introduction of CNC Machinery for the first time. Later in the early 1990's we introduced the first Digital Audio networking and control system in the form of MediaMatrix®, which revolutionized the way professional sound is distributed and controlled. Over the years, we have managed to earn more than 180 patents around the world, and I'm happy to report that our R&D efforts are continuing to lead the way with various new avenues of technology such as our industry leading guitar amplifier modeling software ReValver®. As human beings, about the best we can reasonably hope for is to 'make a difference' (hopefully for the better). I like to think that I have been able to act as a catalyst here at Peavey that has allowed our incredibly talented team to create numerous industry changing technologies. The good news is that it CONTINUES after more than 50 years! I'm indeed thankful for the recognition by AV Magazine, and for the opportunity to continue to 'make a difference' in our industry."

AV Magazine Editor Clive Couldwell commented, "We only thought it right that AV Magazine should bestow its Lifetime Achievement Award on a man who we feel has used traditional values and enviable business acumen to make an indelible mark on the AV industry. But it's not so much what Hartley has achieved, in my view, as how he's achieved it. Not only has Peavey the company ramped up commercial success in the face of today's market pressures under Hartley's leadership, it has done so with honesty, earning much respect along the way from those whose opinions matter. That's pretty impressive in my book and deserving of not just AV Magazine's but also the AV industry's recognition - long overdue in my opinion."

Since founding Peavey Electronics in 1965, Hartley Peavey has engineered, introduced and mass-produced technology innovations that have fundamentally changed the audio/visual industry. Peavey provided the vision and led his engineers in creating groundbreaking technologies for solid-state amplification, power factor correction in audio amplifiers, digital signal processing and computer control of audio systems.

In addition to his product innovations, Peavey pioneered new methods of manufacturing that are now in use throughout the audio/visual industry. Beyond his realm of technology innovation, Peavey has focused on providing reliable and affordable sound reinforcement products to all of the world’s markets, expanding the entire market like no other manufacturer and exporting to 133 countries worldwide. Boasting over 10,000 installations, Peavey’s MediaMatrix® systems gave rise to the distributed digital audio and processing market, and introduced the concept of networked audio, control and monitoring systems. Five decades later, Peavey Electronics continues its legacy of innovation with products like the Crest Audio® Tactus™ Digital Mixing System.

“We were delighted to learn that Hartley had been recognized by AV Magazine for his lifetime of innovation in the audio market," said Kevin Ivey, General Manager of Peavey Commercial Audio. "Many of the things we all take for granted now began as Hartley’s ideas. His drive to innovate and perfect those ideas created the distributed digital signal processing and the networked audio market segments, both of which I am pleased to say Peavey continues to lead.”

In last year's AV Awards, Peavey Commercial Audio was awarded Audio Product of the Year for the MediaMatrix Kiosk2Go™ software application, the world's first drag and drop programming interface application for creating custom control and monitoring interfaces for digital audio systems via mobile devices. The company was named a finalist for 2013 Audio Product of the Year for the Digitool® MX16 multichannel digital audio processor, and 2012 saw Peavey Commercial Audio receive the award for "Audio Installation of the Year" for the MediaMatrix installation at the Qatar National Convention Center.

Now in their 17th year, the AV Awards are sponsored by AV Magazine, and were established to recognize and reward excellence across the Audio Visual industry. The awards are open to any company in the AV industry across Europe. Entries are judged by a panel of senior representatives from user companies and key industry players, and are recognized for achievement that benefits the AV market clients and users and demonstrates technical innovation and creative solutions to communications problems.